White Plains CitizeNetReporter - Private Day Treatments Seek First Medicaid Rate Increase in 20 Years from Assemb

WPCNR Sunday Eagle. Special from Clear View School April 7, 2002. 2:00 PM EDT: Private Day Treatment Centers, the backbone of New York State programs for the mentally disabled are calling on citizens to write their assembly persons, urging they support passage of the first Medicaid increase in the amount paid to Day Treatment Programs in 20 years.

According to a Clear View School communication, the Senate in Albany supports such an increase, a $1.8 million appropriation, which when “leveraged” by local and federal matching funds, will grow to $7,200,000. Clear View, located in Scarborough, New York, has educated numerous disabled youth from White Plains and surrounding towns in Westchester County for 34 years.

The school is urging advocates for the disabled to write their assemblypersons, requesting they support this modest increase.

According to the school that has been in the forefront of persuading legislators to support educational and residential programs for the disabled, the Medicaid rate for children’s Day Treatment Programs has not been increased for over twenty years.

The school also feels that private programs should be supported on a scale more equal to what the state day treatment programs receive. Presently, according to Clear View, state-run agencies now receive twice the daily rate of the voluntary agencies ($100 a day vs. $47).

Clear View in its call for support for the increase in the Medicaid Rate, maintains that children’s Day Treatment Programs are “the first line of engagement” with children suffering from mental illness and “our best resource for maintaining mentally ill children in the community.”

The school also points out that current funding levels from the state, and what the school calls “an absence over the years of any cost of living adjustments (COLAS)…have made it extremely difficult to maintain qualified staff and ultimately threaten program survival.”

The organization in a statement said that low salaries are being additionally threatened by “enormous increases in the cost of medical insurance.” (The White Plains City School District had a similar problem in this year’s school budget where rising medical insurance costs and retirements combined to raise the cost of fringe benefits 15.5%.)


Create an account		The White Plains Daily Internet Newspaper...Founded 2000 A.D....


			Designed and hosted by WestchesterInternet.com